Display, Identity and the Everyday: Self-presentation through online image sharing

Abstract

Drawing on a study of a photo-sharing website (Flickr.com), this paper explores ways in which everyday life is reconfigured through an online photo-sharing space, where traditional boundaries between the public and private spheres are being extended, challenged or eroded. The paper reflects on the presentation and subjects of the images; the narratives within and around them, and the affordances and practices which impact on the ways in which many people review and represent their “everyday selves and lives” online. The interactions on Flickr are presented as instantiating both learning and literacy as a social practice (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Lave & Wenger, 1991) within a context that can be conceptualised as simultaneously global and local. The paper further considers the relationship between digital and traditional domestic photography, drawing on analyses of photographic representation (Hirsh, 2002; Kuhn, 1995) and contrasts how digital practices affect meanings differently.